Learn to Purge Your Analytic Writing
One of the most effective ways to overcome a potential customer’s skepticism about taking the time to read your analytic product is to purge your prose of unnecessary words. This mirrors my advice in an earlier post for analysts to be as concise and clear as possible....
You Need to Sweat the Small Stuff in Analytic Writing
Analysts rightfully put a lot of effort into getting the big things right in their written work, such as being objective, having a clear analytic bottom line, and using evidence properly. They don’t always get them right the first time, but they try. The level of...
Why Recent Graduates Struggle to Become Analysts (and How Proficiency1 Can Help)
I can sum up the idea behind the creation of Proficiency1, an online training community for national intelligence and risk assessment professionals, in one vignette from my career. While interviewing candidates for analyst positions at the CIA, a grad student asked me...
Overcoming the Biggest Customer Challenge Analysts Face
I remember when I started my analytic career being unpleasantly surprised to find policymakers were not the eager consumers of my products that I assumed they’d be. I was writing on interesting topics and providing what I thought were valuable insights, yet most of my...
An Insider’s Look at Life as a CIA Analyst
As a 22-year veteran of the Central Intelligence Agency’s analytic corps I’ve talked to hundreds of people interested in knowing more about a career as an Agency analyst. Thanks to Hollywood’s usually warped view of what analysts do, the necessary veil of secrecy that...
Proficiency1’s Initial Offerings
Here at Proficiency1 we’re busy building up our catalogue of offerings to serve the needs of national security and risk intelligence professionals, and we already have three of my courses as part of our soft launch that you can check out now. They’ll give you a sense...